Facebook update: Promotional guidelines change

Facebook sent out a release on Wednesday morning saying that they have updated their Pages Terms in order to make it easier for businesses of all sizes to create and administer promotions on Facebook.

Here’s what Page administrators need to know:

• They’ve removed the requirement that promotions on Facebook only be administered through apps / tabs on the fan page
• Now, promotions may be administered on Page Timelines and in apps on Facebook. For example, brands can now:

• Collect entries by having users post on the Page or comment/like a Page post
• Collect entries by having users message the Page
• Utilize likes as a voting mechanism
• As before, however, businesses cannot administer promotions on personal Timelines (i.e. the brand manager who has 1,000 friends cannot run the promo from the personal profile)
• Accurate tagging is required in promotions

In order to maintain the accuracy of Page content, Facebook’s Pages Terms now prohibit Pages from tagging or encouraging people to tag themselves in content that they are not actually depicted in. So, for instance:

• It’s OK to ask people to submit names of a new product in exchange for a chance to win a prize
• It’s not OK to ask people tag themselves in pictures of a new product in exchange for a chance to win a prize

However, we don’t see a problem with pages asking fans to tag themselves in a photo purely to gain more engagement where there is no competition running.

In a nutshell you can now run a competition on the page wall itself, however creating a promotion with an app on Facebook allows a Page to create a more personalised experience, more in line with a brand’s strategy and corporate identity. Apps provide more space and flexibility for content than Page posts alone. Promotions run through apps can collect data in a secure, structured way that may be appealing to advertisers, particularly larger brands, while creating a promotion with a Page is faster and easier. Additionally, as with all Page posts, Page posts about promotions are eligible to be displayed in the News Feeds of the people who like the Page and can be promoted to a broader audience.

Each campaign and objective will be different but a mix of an app and page competition with a media budget will yield good results for building a database and spreading the word.

For more info see here